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Hair Race-ing: Dominican Beauty Culture and Identity Production
Author(s): Ginetta Candelario
Source:
Meridians,
Vol. 1, No. 1 (Autumn, 2000), pp. 128-156
Published by: Indiana University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40338439
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^^^wfllraj^^^^^^^^^HHHHHHHHHH
Hair
Race-ing
Dominican
Beauty
Culture
and
Identity
Production
GINETTA CANDELARIO
Use to be
Ya could learn a whole lot
of stuff
sitting
in
them
beauty
shop
chairs
Use to be
Ya could meet
a whole lot
of
other
women
sittin there
along
with hair
frying
spitflying
and babies
crying
Use to be
you
could learn a whole lot about
how to catch
up
with
yourself
and some
other
/oiks
in
your
household.
Lots more
got
taken care
of
than hair ....
- Willi
Coleman,
"Amon^
the
Things
That Use to Be"
At the most
banal
level,
a
beauty
shop
is
where women
go
for
beauty.
But as
Willi
Coleman evocatively
notes,
at
beauty
shops "lots
more
[gets]
taken
care of than hair." The degrees, types,
and technologies
of artifice and
alteration
required by beauty
are
mediated
by
racial, sexual, class,
political,
and
geographic
cultures and locations.
Thus,
beauty
shops can
be
consid-
ered as sites of
both cultural and identity
production.
Some have
argued
[Meridians:
feminism,
race,
transnationalism
2000,
vol.
1,
no.
1,
pp.
128-56]
©
2000
by Wesleyan University
Press. All
rights
reserved.
128
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that if the female
body
generally
has
been
subjected
to
"externalization of
the
gendered
self"
(Peiss
1994,
384),
the
explicitly
racialized
female
body
has been
subjected
to "exile from the self"
(Shohat
and Stam
1994, 322-
33).
With the rise of
global
colonialism,
slavery,
neocolonialism,
and
im-
perialism, African-origin
bodies
have
been
stigmatized
as unsightly
and
ugly,
yet, simultaneously
and
paradoxically
as
hypersexual
(Hernton
1988).
White female bodies are
racialized as well,
but this
racialization is en-
acted
via
the
assumption
of
de-racination,
racial
neutrality,
and
natural-
ized
white
invisibility (Frankenberg
1993).
This
white
supremacist
racial
history
interacts
with
masculinist
imperatives
of
gender
and sexual ho-
mogenization
and
normalization in
particular
ways
(Young 1995).
More-
over,
bodily
beautification
requires
material resources and aesthetic
prac-
tices that are class bound.
The
beauty
shop,
then,
can be
analyzed
as a site
where
hegemonic gender,
class,
sexuality,
and race
tropes simultaneously
are
produced
and
problematized.
In
particular,
hair- the
subject
and
object
of
beauty shop
work-
epito-
mizes the mutual
referentiality
of
race/sex/gender/class
categories
and
identities.
One
can,
as I found
during
a
six-month
participant
observation
at a Dominican
beauty
shop
in
New York
City,
"learn a
whole
lot of
stuff
sittin'
in them
beauty shop
chairs.
"
Here,
the concern
is to
present
both the
representational
and the
production
practices
of hair
culture as a
window
into
the contextualized
complexity
of Dominican
identity.
The hair culture
institutions,
practices,
and ideals
of Dominican
women
in
New
York
City
during
the late
1990s
are
presented
as an
instructive
selection from a
larger
study
(Candelario
2000).
DOMINICAN IDENTITY: ETHNICITY
AND RACE IN CONTEXT
The
importance
of hair as a defining
race
marker
highlights
the cen-
trality
of
beauty
practices.
Hair,
after
all,
is an alterable
sign.
Hair
that is
racially compromising
can
be
mitigated
with
care and
styling.
Skin
color
and
facial
features,
conversely,
are less
pliant
or
not as
easily
altered. That
Dominicans
have
equated
whiteness
both
with
lo
indio,
an
ethno-racial
identity
based on identification with
the decimated
Taino
natives
of the
island
that
now
houses the
Dominican
Republic
and
"lo
Hispano"
or his-
panicity,
reflects the
multiple
semiotic
systems
of race
they
have histori-
cally negotiated.
La/a
\ni\a\o
is
invoked
to erase
the African
past
and Afro-
HAIR RACE-ING 129
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diasporic
present
of Dominicans
(Howard
1997). Hispanicity
affirms
the
ethno-racial distance
between Dominicans and
Haitians,
an
organizing
principle
in
Dominican national
imaginaries
since the rise of
the
state.
Operating
in the context of both
Latin American and United States'
notions of
race,
transnational Dominicans
engage
in
a
sort of racial "code
switching"
in
which
both Latin
American and United States race
systems
are
engaged,
subverted,
and sustained in
various historical
and
biographi-
cal and
spatial
contexts and
moments. For
example,
for a
variety
of
reasons
I
explore
at
length
elsewhere
(Candelario
2000),
Dominicans in
Washing-
ton, D.C.,
identify
as black
nearly
twice as often as Dominicans in
New
York
(see
also
Dore-Cabral and
Itzigsohn
1997;
Levitt
and
Gomez
1997;
Duany
1994).
Confronted in
New
York
City
with
the U.S. model of
pure
whiteness that
valorizes
lank,
light
hair,
white
skin,
light eyes,
thin and
narrow-hipped
bodies,
the
Dominican staff
and clients
at
Salon Lamadas
continue to
prefer
a
whiteness
that
indicates
mixture. The
identity
cate-
gory
labeled
"Hispanic"
is
deployed
as
the
signifier
of
somatic,
linguistic,
and
cultural
alterity
in
relation
to
both
Anglo
whiteness
and African Ameri-
can
blackness. That
Hispanic
looks
are
preferred
over both
the
Anglo
and
African American
somatic norm
images
(Hoetink
1985)
of the
host
society
attests to
resistance to
acculturation and
insistence on an
alternative,
or
"other"
space.
Dominicans,
who
might
have
been
considered
black
by
European
and
U.S.
observers were it not
for their
own colonial
antipathy
toward
Haiti
and
later,
toward
Haitians,
historically
have been
endowed with
a
sort of
literary
and
political
honorary
whiteness in the
service of both the
domes-
tic elite
and
the
military
and
political-economic
interests of the
United
States.
It is
an
ethno-racial
identity
formulation
predicated
on the
physi-
cal
disappearance
of
Taino
natives,
coupled
with
their
literary
(Sommer
1983),
iconographic,
and
bodily
re-inscription,
and a
concomitant
textual
and
ideological
erasure of
blackness
(Torres-Saillant
1999).
Rather
than
use
the
language
of
Negritude-
negro,
mulatto,
and so
forth-
to describe
themselves,
Dominicans
use
language
which
limits their racial
ancestry
to
Europeans
and
Taino
"Indians"-
indio,
indio
oscuro,
indio
daroy
trigueno,
moreno/a.
The
result is an
ethno-racial
Hispanicized
Indian,
or an
Indo-
Hispanic
identity.
A
series of
regionally
anomalous events in
the
political
economic his-
tory
of
Santo
Domingo
accounts for this
distinctive
formulation of
white-
ness.
Chief
among
those
anomalies
are the
relatively
short duration
and
limited
importance
of plantation
slavery,
the
massive
depopulations
130 GINETTA
CANDELARIO
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caused
by
white
emigration,
the
impoverishment
of the
remaining
white
and Creole colonials
during
the
seventeenth-century
Devastation,
and the
concomitantly
heavy
reliance
upon
blacks
and
mulattos in the armed
forces
and
religious
infrastructure
(Moya
Pons
1995,
Torres-Saillant
1996).
At
the
same
time,
Spanish
colonial norms of
whiteness,
what Hoetink
(1967)
has
called the "Iberian variant" of a
white
"somatic
norm
image,"
were
darker
than the
contemporary Anglo-European
version.
French
travel writers
of the nineteenth
century,
when
visiting
the
Span-
ish
part
of the island then called Saint
Domingue,
noted that
people
who
seemed
obviously
of
mixed African and
Spanish
descent
considered them-
selves,
not mulattos or
colored,
but
los blancos de \a
tierray
literally,
"the
whites
of the land.
"
According
to
Moya
Pons,
"This meant that
despite
their
color,
[the
whites
of the
land]
were
different from the slaves
whom
they
saw
as the
only
blacks
of the island."
(1996,
16)
In
other
words,
in Domini-
can
history,
whiteness- whatever
its
bodily parameters-
is an
explicitly
achieved
(and
achievable)
status
with
connotations of
social,
political,
and
economic
privilege.
It
is,
moreover,
understood to be
a
matter
of
context.
THE DOMINICAN BEAUTY SHOP IN NEW YORK CITY
The
representation
of Dominican women
in the
beauty shop occupa-
tions
reflects both the
importance
of
beauty
culture to Dominican
women,
and the
shifting opportunities
available
in the
New York
economy.
When
Dominican
women
first
began
to
arrive
in
New
York
in the
1960s
and
1970s,
they generally frequented
shops
owned
by
other
Latina/os, espe-
cially
Cubans
and Puerto
Ricans,
who were
already
established in
Upper
Manhattan
(Masud-Piloto
1996,
Rodriguez 1991,
Sanchez-Korrol
1983).
Although
Dominicans had been
migrating
to
New
York
City
since the
early
nineteenth
century,
the Dominican
community
began
to establish
itself
more
permanently
after the
1965
revolution
and
the
1965
U.S.
Immigration
Act
(Martin
1966).
The
post-1980
flow
of
Dominican women
into
beauty
shop
occupations-
whether
as
owners, hairdressers, manicurists,
sham-
poo girls,
estheticians,
or masseurs-
reflects
simultaneously changes
in
the
New York
economy
from
manufacturing
to
service
industries,
changes
in
the
demographics
of the
Washington
Heights
area,
and
changes
in
Dominican
beauty
culture in
the Dominican
Republic
as well
(see
New
York
City Department
of
City
Planning 1995).
While Dominican women
continue
to be
overrepresented
in the nondurable
goods
manufacturing
HAIR RACE-ING 131
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sector
(Hernandez
1989;
Hernandez
et
al.
1997),
particularly
in the
apparel
industry
(Pessar
1987a, 1987b; Waldinger 1986),
the
volatility
of that sec-
tor,
together
with
the
regimentation, occupational
hazards,
low
pay,
and
low
status of
manufacturing
and much
service-sector
employment,
make
beauty
shop ownership
and
employment appealing
by
comparison.
In
addition,
in
the
Dominican
Republic beauty
culture has come to be
seen as
a
respectable
and
professional
field.
Although
commercial
beauty
shops
have existed
in
the Dominican
Republic
since
at
least the
1930s,
they
generally
serviced the
elite. The
majority
of
Dominican
beauty
culturalists
operated
out of
their homes until
the
1980s.
Typically
these
shops
were
located in a converted front
room,
patio,
or
garage space
and consisted
of an
owner-operator
and a
young neighborhood
assistant.
Shop
owner-
operators
and assistants
alike
were
considered
nearly
at
par
with
domestic
workers,
and thus
were
of
low
socio-economic status.
Additionally, beauty
culturalists
were
reputed
to be
women
of
loose sexual morals.
In
the
early
1980s,
however,
beauty
culturalists
began
to
professionalize,
via the
estab-
lishment
of
a
professional organization,
Asociacion de
Estilistas Domini-
canas
(Dominican
Hair
Stylists
Association),
the
proliferation
of
beauty
schools
and certification
programs,
and
a shift
from
the
use of
domestic
and home
-manufactured
products
to an
increasing
reliance
upon
hair- care
products
and
technologies imported
from the United States.
Beauty shop
work,
in
other
words,
has come to be
viewed
as
a skilled
profession
one
trains for
and
pursues.
Work
in the
New York
Dominican
beauty shop,
while
not
entirely
au-
tonomous or
especially
well-paying,
makes
possible greater autonomy
and
flexibility
and
higher
earnings
and
community
status.
Job
quality
and
job
satisfaction are often
higher
than
in
manufacturing
or other
service-
sector
employment.
In
addition,
the
Dominican
beauty
shop represents
a
female-dominated
entrepreneurial
sector,
somewhat
parallel
to
the male-
dominated
Dominican
bodega
(grocery
store).
In his
study
of Dominican
entrepreneurs
in
New
York
City,
Guarnizo
(1993)
found that
entrepreneu-
rial
Dominican
women
frequently
chose
beauty
shops
as
their niche. He re-
ported,
"One
out
of
every
five
respondents
is a
woman.
Unlike
male
[busi-
ness]
owners,
however,
women
are
clustered in
a
single
sector:
60
percent
of
women
own service firms
(especially beauty
salons
and other
personal
service
establishments)
while
only
25
and
15
percent
of them
own
com-
mercial or
manufacturing
firms,
respectively"
(121).
The
appeal
of this
sector
for
Dominican
women
in
New
York
City
is
manifold. In
economic
terms,
beauty shop
start-up
costs are
substantially
132 GINETTA
CANDELARIO
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lower
than commercial
or
manufacturing
firms,
and therefore are more ac-
cessible
to
low-earning,
poorly capitalized,
or less-educated
women.
Fur-
ther,
barriers
to
entry
are
fewer,
both in terms of fixed
capital
and human
capital
(Schroder
1978;
Willet
1996).
In cultural
terms,
beauty
shop
work
is considered
women's
purview,
while
commercial
or
manufacturing
ven-
tures are
generally
considered male domains.
Bodegileras
(female
grocery
shop
owners),
for
example,
while
not
uncommon,
often have male
kin
representandolas
(representing
them)
at the store counter.
Similarly,
while
Dominican men
do
own
beauty
shops,
they
are less
likely
to be
owner-
operators,
preferring
instead to hire
women
managers.
Currently
there
is a
thriving
Dominican
beauty
culture
industry
in
New
York
City, supported primarily
by
Dominican,
and
increasingly
by
African
American women
(Williams
2000).
In
Washington
Heights/Inwood
alone,
that
is,
in the
vicinity
in northwestern
Manhattan
from
155th
street
to
the
190s,
from
the Harlem
River
on
the
east to the Hudson
River
on the
west,
where
40 percent
of the
Dominican
population
in
New York
resides,
there
are
146
salons
(1992
Economic
Census,
Service
Industries,
Firms
Subject
to
Federal Income
Tax,
Zip
Code
Statistics,
Manhattan
Yellow
Pages, April 1999-
April
2000).
On
average,
these salons
are
two-tenths
of
a
mile
(or
one-and-
one-half
blocks)
apart
from
one another.
There
is,
in
other
words,
a salon
on
nearly every
single
block
in
Washington Heights.1
By
comparison,
there are
only 103
(or
40 percent
fewer)
beauty shops
in
the far wealthier
Upper
East
Side,
which
is
the district from East
61st
to
East
94th
Streets,
from Fifth
Avenue
to
the East
River.
These
salons
are
eight-tenths
of a
mile
apart
on
average.
In
Harlem,
where
average per
capita
income
is
nearly
identical
to
that in
Washington
Heights/Inwood,
there
are
112
shops.
Shops
in this
district,
which
ranges
from
114th
to
138th
Streets,
and from
Fifth Avenue
to the Hudson
River,
are four-tenths
of
a
mile
apart
on
average.
Washington Heights/Inwood
is
only slightly
more
densely populated
than
Harlem,
but
has
30 percent
more
shops.
These
numbers
are
all the more
impressive
given
the
exceedingly
high poverty
rate
(36 percent)
and low
per-capita
income level
($6,336) among
Domi-
nicans
in
New
York
City.
It is
quite
clear that hair
and
beauty shops
are
important
to Dominicans.
Today,
the Dominican
salon in New York
City
is a
neighborhood
insti-
tution
that
indicates
community
actualization.
If,
as the
old
sociological
maxim
holds,
for most
immigrant
communities
the establishment
of eth-
nically specific
funeral
homes indicates
community
salience
(e.g.,
Park
et
al. 1925;
Gans
1962),
for
Dominicans,
the
beauty shop
holds
a simi-
HAIR RACE-ING 133
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lar role in the
community.
The Dominican
beauty shop,
with
the
physi-
cal
space
it
plots
out and
the
social
relationships
it
contains,
is a site that
not
only
reflects transnational
community development
and
cohesion,
but
helps
sustain it.
SALON LAMADAS
Salon
Lamadas,
where
I
spent
six
months
as a
participant-observer,
is
in
many
ways
a
typical
Dominican salon.2
It
is
located in the heart of Wash-
ington
Heights,
on St.
Nicholas Avenue several
blocks
south of the 181st
Street
shopping
district.
Surrounding
the salon are a
telephone
station,
a
pharmacy,
a Pronto Envio
(remittances
center),
and
a family
restaurant.
This is
a typically busy
commercial and residential
street,
trafficked
pri-
marily
by
Dominicans,
Puerto
Ricans,
Cubans,
and,
increasingly,
Mexi-
cans.
Founded in
1992
by
an
owner
operator,
Salon Lamadas
is
an
average-
sized
shop
with
four
stylists,
including
the
owner,
and a shampooer,
a
manicurist,
and
a
facialist/
masseuse. Music is
always playing
at the
salon,
sometimes
quite loudly. Generally
it
is
merengue
and
salsa,
although
one
or
two ballads surface. Often
in
the
afternoon
the
television is turned
on,
as
well,
and is
usually
tuned to
Cristina,
a
popular
Miami-based,
Spanish-
language
talk
show.
In
addition to the
music
and
the
television,
the
blow
dryers
are
constantly
going. Despite
all this
noise,
the
women
hear
each
other
quite
well,
and
carry
on
conversations across the
room. The atmo-
sphere
is one of
conviviality
and
easy
familiarity.
The salon is open
seven
days
a week.
Although
many
salons
in
the
United States
close on
Mondays,
Dominican salons do
not. This is true
for
several reasons.
First,
Dominican
women
use salons for
regular weekly
hair
care,
not
for
intermittent
haircuts and
hair
treatments.
Therefore,
there is
steady
demand
throughout
the
week,
although
Fridays
and Satur-
days
are
still the
busiest
days.
Second,
the staff needs
to
work
six
days
a
week
in
order
to earn
enough
money
to
survive in
New
York
and
to
re-
mit
dollars to
their
families in the
Dominican
Republic
(Hernandez
and
Torres-Saillant
1998,
Grasmuck
and
Pessar
1991).
Third,
because Domi-
nican
women are
heavily represented
in
blue-
and
pink-collar
work
(Her-
nandez
1989;
Hernandez,
Rivera-Batiz,
and
Agodini 1995),
the salon
must
accommodate
to their
varied and
long working
hours.
Salon
Lamadas,
like
most
neighborhood
salons,
has a core of
clients
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who
frequent
the
shop
regularly,
usually
once
a
week.
Thirty
of those
"regu-
lars" were
approached
for
interviews. Fifteen
agreed.
Although
this is
not
a
statistically representative sample,
neither in size nor in
selection,
they
are
a
diverse
group
in terms
of
current
age, age
at
migration,
generation
of
migration, residency
status,
labor-force
participation
rates,
professional
status,
educational attainment
levels,
Spanish-
and
English-language pro-
ficiency,
marital
status,
household
composition,
and
physical appearance.
The
interviews
consisted
of
two
or three
separate
three-hour
interviews.
The first
was
a
life-history
interview,
in
which
the
respondent's
migration,
labor
markets
and educational
experience, family
life,
and
personal
his-
tory
were
explored.
The second
interview
inquired
into
the
respondent's
experience
of Dominican
beauty
culture,
both at Salon Lamadas and more
generally.
In
addition,
a third
interview
consisting
of a photo
elicitation
component
was
conducted,
following
Furman
(1997)
and
Kottak
(in
Har-
ris
1964: 57).
Using
color
photocopies
of
images copied
from
hairstyle
books
utilized
at Salon
Lamadas,
respondents
were
asked
to select and
describe
the
women
they
found "most attractive"
and "least attractive."
The
explicit
work
of the
salon,
the transformation
of a Dominican
woman's
hair into
a culturally
acceptable
sign
of
beauty, hinges
the cus-
tomer's
sense of self
and
beauty
on certain racialized
norms
and
models.
The
Dominican
salon
acts as a socializing
agent.
Hair care
and salon use
are
rites of
passage
into
Dominican
women's
community.
At the
salon,
girls
and women
learn to
transform
their bodies
- through
hair
care,
wax-
ing,
manicuring, pedicuring,
facials,
and
so forth- into
socially
valued,
culturally
specific,
and
race-determining displays
of
femininity.
Many
of
my respondents
recalled
visiting
beauty shops
as children
with
their
mothers.
Chastity,
for
example,
said,
"I used
to
always
go
with
my
mother
to this
shop
in
Flushing,
where
I grew
up.
She
would
go
all the
time
and
I'd
go
with
her. I must have
been
real little because
I remember
being
like
"Wow"
and
"Ooo" about
everything.
They
all
looked
glamorous
to me.
(Laughs)
She still
goes
there,
and
it
was
the
first
shop
I
used
myself.
I still
go
there
sometimes
just
to catch
up
on the
neighborhood
gossip."
3
As
Chastity explains,
for
young
girls
with
their
mothers,
the
shop
seems
"glamorous"
and
adult,
and
therefore
awe-inspiring.
These
shops
act as community
centers;
the
exchange
of information
and women's
insights
is
as
much
a
part
of
their function
as the
production
of
beauty.
Further,
as in
Chastity's
case,
it
was
often
the mother's
shop
that
young
women
first
visited.
Generally
speaking,
however,
they
themselves
did
not become
beauty shop
clients until
they
were
about fifteen
years
old.
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That
fifteen
is
the
age
when
Latin
American
girls
of means
are
introduced
into
society,
and
when
Latin American
girls generally
are
socially
consid-
ered
"women",
is
not
coincidental
(King 1998).
Kathy
recalled her first
salon
visit:
"Aha,
the
first time I
went
to
a shop
I
was
already
like
fifteen
years
old.
And
it
was
to
have
my
hair trimmed a little. But
I
already
wanted
to
get
out of the
ponytails
and buns
already.
And so
I
went
to
a
neighbor
who
had a
shop
in her
house and
I had
my
hair
washed,
trimmed,
and
set.
Oh,
I
looked
so
pretty."
The
repeated
refrain of how
"pretty"
they
looked
after
their
first
beauty
shop
visit also
marks
the
transition from
"innocent"
childhood
to
"sexual"
young
womanhood.
All of the
respondents
raised in
the
Dominican
Republic,
and
several who were
raised
here,
recalled that
the
transition from childhood to
young
womanhood was marked
by
the
loosening
of
their hair from
ponytails
and monos
(buns).
Others
recalled first
visiting
a
beauty
shop
in
preparation
for their mi-
gration
to
the
United
States,
a
moment
which
also
might
mark
the transi-
tion from
girlhood
to
adolescence.
Nurka,
for
example,
recalled that before
migrating,
when
she
was
fourteen,
her mother
took
her sisters and her to
a
beauty shop
in
town:
Look,
it
was
to
come here.
Exactly.
Yes.
(Chuckles)
I had never
gone
to
a salon.
I always,
I had
two
pony
tails
like
this,
and that
was
it. But I
went. When
we were
coming
here,
mommy
went
to
pick
us
up.
And she
took
the
three
of
us to the salon. I
think
my
brother also had a haircut.
And it
was,
we were
in the
country,
and
mommy
took
us
to
the
east,
to
Bayaguana,
the
place
was
called. She
took us
there to
have
us all
have
our hair
cut.
They
trimmed
our
hair,
they
washed
our hair and it
was,
"Oh!"
Everyone,
"Oh! What
pretty
hair!
Oh,
how
pretty!"
(Laughs)
And
that
was
true,
yes
of course. I remember it
as
if it
were
today,
yes.
For
Nurka,
the
transition from childhood to
adulthood
was marked
as
much
by
the
change
from
pigtails
to
hair
done
at the
shop,
as
by
the
move
to
New York.
Her
transformation into
young
womanhood
is
socially
recog-
nized
by
people
who
acclaim
her
"pretty
hair",
now
loose
and
womanish.
Like
Nurka,
Chastity
remembers her
grandmother styling
her hair into
pigtails
and
later
monos for neatness
and
ease
of care. So
long
as
mother
and
grandmothers
were
responsible
for their
children's
hair,
these
were
the
preferred
styles.
As
Nana
explained,
Look,
I hated
those
buns.
It
was
three
buns,
one
here,
one
here,
and
one
here.
My
grandmother
used to
make
them
with
a
piece
of
string.
And
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the
other children used to
make
fun of them
saying
like
"Tin mari
de
dos
pingd,
cucara macara
titirejue"
[a
nonsensical children's
rhyme].
I used to
tear them
[the
buns]
apart
when
I
was
walking
to school.
So
then,
when
I became a little
bigger,
my
grandmother
told me
that
I
was
already
old
enough
to
take
care
of
my
hair
myself.
And that was such
a
joy
for
me!
Oh! I started
wearing
curlers
and
styling
my
hair
well.
The transition
of
hair
care from one's
caretaker's
hands into one's
own,
thus,
paralleled
the
increasing responsibility
for one's
own
body
and self.
RACIALIZED REPRODUCTION AND HAIR CULTURE
. . . Cause
in our mutual obvious
dislike
for nappiness
we came
together
under the hot
comb
to
share
and share
and
share
- "Among
the
Things
That Use
to
Be"
A central
aspect
of Dominican
hair culture has
been the
twin
notions
of
pelo
malo
(bad
hair)
and
pelo
bueno
(good
hair).
Bad
hair
is hair that is
perceived
to
be
tightly
curled,
coarse,
and
kinky.
Good hair is hair that
is soft and
silky, straight,
wavy,
or
loosely
curled. There are
clearly
racial
connotations
to each
category:
the
notion of bad hair
implies
an
outright
denigration
of
African-
origin
hair
textures,
while
good
hair exalts
Euro-
pean,
Asian,
and
indigenous-
origin
hair textures.
Moreover,
those
with
good
hair
are,
by
definition,
not
black,
skin
color
notwithstanding.
Thus,
hair becomes
an
emblem
of
the
everyday engagement
of
blanqueamiento,
or
whitening.
The Dominican
salon,
in
being
the
preeminent
site of Dominican hair
culture
practices
and
technologies, provides
insight
into the
relative
sa-
liency
of
blanqueamiento,
which
is
fundamentally
about
physical
relations,
sexual
and
otherwise,
between
people.
This
is not
to
say
that
blanque-
amiento
does not
operate
in nonmaterial
culture realms
as
well,
as Piedra's
(1991)
work
on
literary
whiteness
has
aptly
illustrated it
does.
However,
there is an
explicit physicality
to
blanqueamiento,
particularly
as it
impli-
cates racialized
gender.
It is there that
beauty
culture
practices
comes
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into
play.
Blanqueamiento
is a long-term process
of
encoding
whiteness
bodily.
Hair culture is
a
much more
immediate,
if more
ephemeral,
solu-
tion.
In the United
States,
non-African American
women
rarely
have
the
opportunity
to interact
with African
American women
around
beauty
re-
gimes. Consequently, they
do
not
experience
first-hand the
variety
of hair
textures in
the African
diaspora
through touching, washing,
or
styling
"black
hair",
through seeing
media
depictions
of black
hair
care,
or
through seeing
African American
women themselves
caring
for their hair.
African American
women,
on the
other
hand,
constantly
are
exposed
to
white
women's
hair care and hair
textures
through
a
variety
of
hegemonic
media:
dolls, television,
cinematic and
print
media
representations,
and
through observing
first hand
white
women's
hair ministrations
through-
out the
day. Currently,
women
with
non-African-diaspora
hair textures
spend
a
great
deal
of time
throughout
the
day
grooming
their
hair
- brush-
ing
it,
tying
it
up,
loosening
it,
washing
it,
drying
it,
or
otherwise
fussing
with
it.
By
contrast,
African-diaspora
hair
once
styled
retains its set and is
typically
washed
every
third
or fourth
day
at home or in the salon.
Thus,
many
non-African
Americans
simply
do not
know
what
"black
hair"
feels
like,
how
it is
maintained,
what
products
are used
on
it,
and
what
beauty
practices
are
employed.
The first
time that
many
white
women
are
exposed
to
black
women's
hair
in close
quarters
is
when
they
are
put
into a communal
living
situa-
tion,
such as a
school
dormitory
or
armed services
barracks.
A
commonly
cited
experience
of
black women
is that of
the white housemate
who
asks
to touch her
hair,
thus
exposing
the
white
woman's
segregated upbringing,
the
novelty
(specifically,
the racialized
exoticism)
of
African-diaspora
hair
textures, and,
ultimately,
her
own white aesthetic
privilege.
Black
women
often
recount the
strong impact
and
significance
of these
encounters,
while
white women seem
surprised
at the
hostility
with
which
their seem-
ingly
innocent desire to
touch is
met
(Cary
1991;
Frankenberg 1993).
Beauty
shops
in the
United States
originated
as,
and
continue to
be,
so-
cially
segregated
spaces,
in
practice
if
not
by
law
(Willet
1996).
Schroder,
for
example,
relates
the
story
of the
disruptive
effect of a
new
hire's "ethnic
clientele"
in the
implicitly
(if
not
explicitly)
white
racialized
"atmosphere
existing
in the
salon"
(1978,
193).
African
Americans and
Anglo
Ameri-
cans
alike
hesitate
to
frequent
each
other's
shops,
although
from
the mid-
1980s
a series
of
individual and
legal
challenges
to those
social
norms have
occurred
(C.
Coleman
1995,
Goodnough
1995,
Willet
1996).
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Dominican
women,
conversely,
do not
experience
this brand of racial
segregation.
Simply
stated,
Dominican
families
are
comprised
of
people
with
a variety
of hair
textures,
facial
features,
and
skin
tones. Girls and
young
women
are allowed
"hands-on"
exposure
to
a
range
of
hair
textures
throughout
their lives.
Fannie,
for
example,
utilized one hair care
regime
at
home
suited to
her mother's and her
own
fine,
lank
hair. As she came
of
age,
however,
and
began
to
socialize with
her
cousins,
whose hair care
regimes
included
roller
sets,
relaxers and doobies
(hair
wraps),
she became
versed in those
methods
as
well.
Responding
to the
question
of how
she
came to work in
a beauty shop,
she notes
that her first
experiences
with
Dominican
beauty
culture
occurred in
the context
of her
family,
which
is
"very large"
and
very
diverse.
As she recalls:
We
would
all
go
to
the beach
together,
in
Barahona,
there are
a lot of
beaches.
And when we would
come
back
from the
beach,
I
would
re-
turn with
my
hair
dry
and
straight,
you
know?
And
then,
they
would
come with
their
hair,
you
know,
curly.
You
know,
bad hair that is
relaxed?
That
when
it comes
into contact
with
sea
waters
it
becomes,
you
know,
Dominican
hair,
black women's
hair? And
they
would
say
to
me,
"Oh!
You're
all
set
to
go
dancing,
but not
me. Come
on
then,
and
get
to
work
fixing
my
hair too."
And
so
I,
in order
to
hurry up
and for
us
to
all
get
ready
at the
same
time,
I wanted
to
help.
And
that's
how I
started
prac-
ticing.
"Let me
set
your
hair."
"Here,
fix
my
hair."
You
know?
Between
ourselves,
girls
to the
end,
getting
together.
Fannie's
story highlights
several
themes that
will
be
explored
in this sec-
tion.
It
was in
participating
in her
cousin's hair
care
regimes
that she
learned
and
began
to
practice
setting
hair.
Further,
her
cousins marshaled
her
assistance
in
caring
for
their
hair,
evidently
undaunted
by
her
personal
unfamiliarity
with
their hair
texture.
In
helping
to care for
each other's
hair,
a
spirit
of
feminine
intimacy
across
racial
boundaries marked
by
hair
care
practices
- "between
ourselves,
girls
to
the end" -was developed
and
sustained.
Finally,
although
she
herself
is Dominican
and has
fine,
lank
hair,
light
eyes,
and freckled
white
skin,
Fannie
equates
"Dominican
hair"
with
"black women's
hair"
and
"bad hair
that
is relaxed.
"
It is
her cousins'
beauty
culture
practices,
in
other
words,
that
"typify"
Dominican women's
hair
culture.
Similarly,
Dominican
mothers
and
daughters
often
have
dissimilar
hair
textures,
yet
mothers have
to
care for
and
style
their
daughter's
hair.
Doris,
for
example,
never
used curlers
herself,
nor
did
her
sisters,
but
she had
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to set her
daughters*
hair,
which is thick and
curly.
"I
myself
haven't used
them
yet,"
she said. "It
was
out
of
necessity,
out of
necessity
that I learned.
I'd
put
them and
they'd
come
out,
more
or
less,
with
lots of
pins
and
things
like
that I
saw
at the salon
how
they
did
it
and
I,
more
or
less,
in
my
mind
I had an
idea
of
how
they
were
done,
and
I
did them and
they
didn't
come
out too
badly.
Because
you
know,
it's
very
difficult
to
get
them
to
come
out
as
nice as
they
do.
"
This
passage
indicates that the salons Doris
frequented
catered to
clients with hair
like
hers,
as
well
as to
clients
who
used
roller
sets.
In
other
words,
unlike
U.S.
shops,
the
typical
Dominican
beauty
shop
caters to
women of various hair textures.
Further,
the
work
done in the
shops,
as Doris
points
out,
is
"very
difficult" and
requires
a
degree
of
skill.
Finally,
as
with Fannie and her
cousins
at
home,
the
beauty shop helped
to
socialize
Doris,
and later her
children,
into
Dominican
beauty
culture.
"A RICE AND BEANS FACE":
LOOKING DOMINICAN, SEEING HISPANIC
For
Dominicans,
hair
is the
principal bodily signifier
of
race,
followed
by
facial
features,
skin
color,
and, last,
ancestry.
Juan
Antonio
Alix's
nine-
teenth-century
de'cima,
or ten-line
poem,
"El
negro
tras
las
orejas"
("Black
Be-
hind
the
Ears")
illustrates
this
phenomenon
well:
De la
parienta
Fulana Such and such
relative's
El
pelo siempre
se
mienta; Hair is
always
mentioned;
Pero
nunca la
pimienta But never
the black
pepper
De
la
tia sina Sutana. Of
aunt so
and so.
Por
ser
muy
bianco
se
afana, One strives to be
very
white,
Y del
negro
hasta se
aljea Even distances oneself
from the
black
man
Nublando
siempre
una
ceja Always
arching
an
eyebrow
Cuando
aquel
a
hablarle viene When he
comes
to
speak
with
one
Porque
se
cree
que
no tiene Because
one
thinks
that
one does not
have
"El
negro
tras de la
oreja." "The
black behind the
ears."
[Alix
1996,
8,
trans,
by
author]
Although
Alix's
decima
was written in
1883
,
the role of
hair as
race-signifier
among
Dominicans
dates
back
to
at least the
late
eighteenth century
(Mou-
reau de
Saint-
Mery
1944, 95).
Given that
Dominicans are
endowed with
many
of the
physical
signs
to
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which
they
attribute
blackness,
and that
they
draw
a distinction
between
blackness
and
hispanicity,
how
do
they
discern
who
is
"Hispanic"
and
who
is not?4
Hairstyle
books
offer an
invaluable window
into
how Domini-
cans
read bodies
racially.
I elicited formal
responses
to
pictures
in these
books
during
interviews
with salon clients. In
addition,
on
several
occa-
sions when the
shop
was
quiet
and there
were
no
clients,
I
opened
the
books
and asked
the
staff,
individually
and
collectively,
for their
opinions
of
the
hairstyles
and models
depicted.
The
core
questions
guiding
the elicitation
were:
Who
do
Dominican
women
consider
beautiful? Is the norm closer
to,
or further
from,
white-
ness or
blackness?
How
are
"Hispanic
looks"
conceptualized?
What is
the
relationship
between
aesthetic
preferences
and social status?
While
a sample
of
eighteen respondents
is not a statistically
valid
one,
the re-
sults
resonate
with
larger,
historical indications
of Dominican notions
of
beauty
and
race,
as
well
as
with
my ethnographic
findings
in the
beauty
shop.
At
Lamadas,
of the
thirteen books
customers
use
when
selecting
a
hair-
style,
ten
are of
white
models and
hairstyles.
Three of the
books
feature
African
American
women.
One
afternoon I approached
owner-operator
Chucha
with
one
of the three
African American
hairstyle
books
and asked
her
about the
styles
it
contained.
Chucha:
I
just
bought
that
book.
I
bought
it because
my
clients have
to locate
themselves
in
the hair
they
have.
Me: How
so?
Chucha:
Why,
Dominican
women
don't
want
to see that book.
They
ask
for
the
white
women's
book;
they
want
their manes
long
and
soft
like
yours.
Me:
Why?
Chucha: It's
because
of racism.
It's
just
that
we
don't even know what
race we
are. That
if we're
white,
that
if
we're
black, indio,
or
what.
... I don't
want
to
know
about
blacks,
so I don't
have to
be
fucking
around with kinks.
Look,
I came out like
one of
my
aunts,
and that
was
suffering
in
my
house
in order
to
lower
my
kinks.
The
Dominican woman
wants
her
soft
mane,
long
hair.
I
bought
that
book
now
so
they
can start
to locate themselves well.
They
don't
want
to see
that book.
They
ask
for the white women's
book,
the
one
for
good
hair like
yours.
Look,
I have
a client who
brings
me a
three-year-old
girl
so I can blow
dry
her hair.
You
know
what
that
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is?
Three
years
old.
And in
the
end,
when she
gets
home and starts
playing,
her hair
stands on end
again. (Laughs.)
The
latest
was
that she
wanted
her to have her hair set. That
little
girl
sat under
the
dryer
better
than some
big
ones,
reading
her
magazine.
Do
you
think that's
right?
That's
suffering.
It's
not
fair. I tell
her,
"Leave
her with her
curly
hair,
put
a
ribbon in it and
leave
it!" But
no,
they
want their
soft manes.
Chucha
wants to
help
her clients "locate
themselves,"
and
the selves she is
pointing
Dominican
women to
are black. But this is a
self-image rejected
by
her
clients,
who
"don't
want
to see
that
book."
Instead,
they
"ask
for
the
white
women's
book."
Attributing
the
desire for
long
and soft
hair
to
racism
and
to
racial
confusion,
Chucha
reiterates the
equation
of
blackness
with
kinky,
difficult
hair,
a result
of failed
blanqueamiento.
As she
indicates
by
tracing
her
own
"grefias"
(kinks)
to
her
aunt,
blackness
is
errant,
and
betrays.
It leads to
"suffering."
Interestingly,
Chucha
depersonalizes
her
own
suffering,
referring
in-
stead to
"Dominican
women,"
to her
clients,
or to her
family's
suffer-
ing.
The
ambivalence
Chucha
expresses,
as a
woman whose
own
hair
was
treated as a cause
of
sorrow
in
her
childhood and as a stylist
who ac-
tively
participates
in the
very system
she
condemns,
typifies
the
paradox
of
Dominican
beauty
culture.
She is
critical
of
her clients
for
choosing
the
white
book,
for
subjecting
their
three-year-olds
to
suffering
under the
dryer,
and for
preferring
"long
manes.
"
She
relishes the
resiliency
and un-
ruliness
of a child's
kinky
hair
that refuses
to relax.
Yet,
she is an
active
agent
of
the
very system
she
criticizes.
Further,
she
is
subjected
to it
herself,
even as
an adult.
The
texture
of
Chucha's hair
was
variously
presented
as "pelo
macho"
(macho
hair),
"pelo
durito"
(slightly
hard
hair)"
and
"pelo
juerte"
(strong
hair)"
by
her
staff,
and
as "grenas"
(kinks)
and
"pasas
que
hay que
bajarlas"
(these
raisins that
have
to be
tamed)
by
herself.
Much
like the
customers
who
pretend
not to
notice
the
waiter's
gaffe
in
order
to
support
his
role
(Goffman
1959),
Lamadas'
staff
politely
overlook
and
accommodate
Chu-
cha's
hair
texture,
both
through
their
grooming
of her
hair and
through
their
softened
descriptions
of it.
Yet
Chucha
herself is
ambivalent
about
her
hair,
as the
following
selection from
my
field
notes
indicates:
Chucha
and
Leticia
attended a Sebastian hair
product
seminar in
New
Jersey
today.
The
topic
was
how
to
use a
new color
product.
Chucha sat
down and
recounted
the
details
of her
experience
to
Maria:
"They
don't
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work
on bad heads there. It's all for
good
hair,
like
hers
(pointing
to
me)
and
yours
(Maria)."
I
asked
why
not,
and whether
they
had
ever
asked
for a different
kind
of
hair on the dummies.
Again
Chucha
responded:
"There it
is!
Our
job
is to
adapt straight
hair,
good
hair
products,
to
ours.
I was
dying laughing, thinking
about the
surprise they'd experience
if
my
hair
got
wet!" she
laughed.
"If
my
hair
got
wet!"
The
"they"
Chucha
refers
to
are the
Anglo-American producers,
mar-
keters,
and
beauty
culturalists at Sebastian. Chucha's
laughter
and
plea-
sure in
relating
the
story
indicate to me
her awareness
of
her
corporate
host's
reliance
on
superficial appearances.
Water
would return her hair to
its
natural,
tightly
curled
state. Her
looks,
she
recognizes
with
relish,
are
deceiving.
So,
it
seems
that on some level Chucha is
well
aware that she
is
transforming
herself
racially
when she
does her
hair. The
question
is,
what
is she
transforming
into? I
argue
that it is not
a
desire for
whiteness
that
guides
Dominican
hair culture.
Instead,
it is
an
ideal notion
of
what
it
means to "look
Hispanic."
Again,
situating
Dominican
identity
in
the
appropriate spatial
and
po-
litical
context
is
necessary.
The use of the term
Hispanic
in
Spanish by
Domi-
nicans in New York
is an
engagement
with
both the historic
hispanophile
identity
institutionalized
by
the Dominican state and
elite,
and
with
the
white
supremacist
foundations of
the United States racial
state
(Omi
and
Winant
1994).
For
Dominicans,
to
say
in
Spanish
that
they
are
"Hispanic"
is at once
a connection
to a European
linguistic
and cultural
legacy
and
also
a
recognition
of subdordinate ethno-racial
status in the United
States
(Oboler
1995).
In
this tense
negotiation
of
multiple
historical contexts and
codes,
the usual United
States notions of both whiteness
and
blackness
are
subverted.
However,
merely subverting
whiteness
and
blackness
is not liberat-
ing,
for the
concept
of
race as an
organizing
principle
remains
intact. The
bounds
of the
categories
are
altered,
but their hierarchical
systematization
is not. Blackness
continues
unabashedly
to
be
equated
with
ugliness.
When
asked
for their
opinions
of the
appearance
of women
depicted
in an African
American
braiding
book,
Salon
Lamadas'
staff
was
vehemently deroga-
tory
in their
commentary.
At
one
point
a debate ensued
over
whether
the
woman
who
Chucha had
previously
described as
having
"una cara de arroz
con
habichuelas"
(a
rice-and-beans
face)
was Latina
or African American.
Nilda, Maria,
and Flor
felt that
she
was
Latina.
Nene,
Alma,
and Leonora
disagreed,
particularly
Nene,
who
felt that she was
definitively
black.
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Nene: Her features are
rough, ordinary-
black
muzzle,
big
mouth,
fat
nose.
Nilda:
Blacks
are
dirty
and
they
smell.
Hispanics
are
easy
to
spot!
(Turning
to
me.)
You
have
something Hispanic.
Me: What?
Nilda:
Your nose.
Fannie
is
white,
with
good
hair,
but
her
features
are
rough
black
ones.
Leonora:
It's
just
that
black
shows.
Hilda:
Black
is not the color of
the
skin.
Really
pretty, really
fine.
The
white
person
has
black
behind the
ears.
In this
exchange,
several
things
become
apparent.
First,
those
who
"look"
Latina/o
could
easily
be African
American,
and
vice versa.
Second,
"blackness" is discerned
through
a sometimes
contradictory,
but cohe-
sive,
system
of
bodily
signs:
hair, skin,
nose,
and
mouth. When these fea-
tures are
"black"
they
are
perceived
to be
animalistic and
crude,
as the
terms
"rough"
and
"muzzle" and the
attribution
of
filth and odor indicate.
Yet,
they
are
also
common,
if
base,
among
Dominicans as the term
"ordi-
nary" implies.
At the
same
time,
an
intermediate
category,
"Hispanic,"
is
deployed
to
contain
the fluid
middle
between black and
white.
Ancestry,
even if not
discernible
through
skin
color and facial
features,
is
immu-
table.
Thus,
my
nose
indicates
my
African
ancestry.
But,
as the
repeated
references to
my
"good"
hair as signifier
of
whiteness
indicate,
ancestry
does not
determine
current
identity. Finally,
the
continuing currency
of the
one-hundred-year-old
expression
"black
behind the
ears" is
striking.
"black women are confusing,
but the hair lets you know"
But now
we walk
heads
high
napsjiill of
pride
with not
a backward
glance
at some
of
the
beauty
which
use to be.
- "Among
the
Things
That
Use
to Be"
Dominican
women are
lay
anthropologists,
employing
the
sort of
read-
ing
of the
racialized
body
utilized
by,
for
example,
Franz
Boas. Boas
was
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often called as an
expert
witness
in
legal
cases in
which
the
determination
of a
person's
"race" was
required.
In one
instance,
he
was
asked
to deter-
mine
whether
a
"golden-haired
blonde
with
beautiful
gray eyes
and
regular
features"
married to a prominent
Detroit doctor
was
passing
for
white.
(Her
husband
was
suing
her for divorce based on his belief that
she
was.)
Boas concluded that the
woman was
not
black,
explaining,
"If this woman
has
any
of the characteristics of the
Negro
race it
would
be
easy
to find
them
One characteristic that
is
regarded
as reliable
is
the hair. You can
tell
by
a
microscopic
examination of a
cross
section of hair to
what
race that
person belongs"
(Boas,
in
Rooks
1996,
14). Microscopic
examinations,
it
seems,
can also
be
made without benefit of
a
microscope.
Bodies are
racially
coded in
distinct, referential,
and
ultimately
arbi-
trary ways
in
any given
historical and cultural context
(Gilman
1998;
Gould
1996; Montague
1974).
Race
is
a biological
fiction that nonetheless
has
been
institutionalized
into a social fact
through particular
cultural
prac-
tices.
In a community
that strives for
blanqueamiento,
race for Dominican
women
assumes
immediate
importance
as a personal
bodily,
social,
and
cultural
attribute.
Simply
stated,
Dominican
women
consider
women
they perceive
to
be
Hispanic,
and
specifically
Dominican,
as most
beautiful.
Hispanic
(or
Latina)
is often
synonomous
with
Dominican.
Both terms
are
taken
to mean
"a
middle
term,
"
"a
mixture
of
black
and
white,
"
an
intermediate
category.
Latin
looks,
accordingly,
are those that
contain elements
from each
con-
stitutive
"race." As the illustrations
below
indicate women
selected most
often
as
looking
Hispanic
are also
the ones most often
selected
as
prettiest.
The
top
three
"prettiest"
women were
all
thought
to look Latina.
The
top
eight
of the nine women
selected
as
prettiest
were
thought
to
look
Latina
by
20
percent
of the
respondents.
Only
the ninth woman
of those
selected
as
prettiest
was
a blonde-haired,
white-skinned
woman
who was
univer-
sally
declared
to
"not
look
Latina."
At the same
time,
there were
no
"white"
women
among
the women
perceived
as "least
pretty.
"
Instead,
as the Looks
Hispanic
Ratio
indicates,
the women
considered
"least
pretty"
were
those
African
diaspora
women
furthest
away
from
standard
Hispanic-looking
woman
(fig.
1).
Since the
Looks
Hispanic
category
included women
in
nearly equal pro-
portion
from
the white
and black
hairstyle
books,
there does not
seem
to
be
a
preference
for
"pure"
or
"European"
whiteness.
Rather,
each of
the
women
selected
as looking
Latina
was
selected
because her
face
and/or
hair were
perceived
to
indicate
some
degree
of both
African
and
European
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Figure
i. Perceived Prettiness with
"Looks Hispanic" Ratio
Note:
The
images in
figures 1-4 are
taken
from
these sources: Before
and
After:
American
Beaute7,
vol. 2 (Freehold,
N.J.:
Dennis Bernard);
Family
Album
III, Auburn,
Mass.: Worcester
Reading
Co.; Family
Images,
vol. 2 (Auburn,
Mass.: Worcester
Reading
Co.; and Ultra World
of
Hair
Fashion
(Auburn,
Mass.: Worcester
Reading
Co.).
ancestry
(fig.
2).
Those
thought
not to
evidence
any
degree
of mixed an-
cestry
were also those
thought
to "Not
look
Hispanic." (fig. 3) It is the
lack
of
"naturalness"
in
sculpted
and
obviously processed hairstyles
that
Dominican women
point
to as
disconcerting,
and as
distinguishing
Afri-
can
American hair
culture from Dominican hair culture.
Dominican
women
place
great emphasis
on hair that
appears
"healthy,
natural,
and loose." As
Nuris
put
it,
"The difference
between
here and
there,
black
women
here,
they
use a
lot of
grease,
their hair
looks,
it doesn't
look
as loose
as Dominican
women's. Dominican women don't
use it that
way,
they
wear
their hair
processed,
but
the hair looks
healthy,
it
stays
well,
very
pretty,
the
hair,
the hair
always
looks
healthy.
... I think
the differ-
ence
is
like
to
look
more
natural. To
look
more, like,
for the hair
to
look
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Figure
2. "Looks Hispanic," in Order
of
Frequency
Selected,
and with
Prettiness
Ranking
looser.
That's it." In
other
words,
the
extensive
technology,
time,
and effort
employed
to
make
the
hair "loose and
manageable"
must not
show.
In-
deed,
it is
precisely
the
emphasis
on
naturalness that
signifies
the racial
iconography
of
Dominican hair
culture. In this
way,
Dominican
whiteness
both
subverts U.S.
white
supremacy
based
on the "one
drop
of blood rule"
(where
"one
drop"
of African
"blood"
makes one
black
[Davis
1991;
Harris
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Figure
3.
"Does Not
Look
Hispanic,"
with
Prettiness
Ranking
1964])
and sustains the
blanqueamiento-based
white
supremacy
of
Domini-
can
hispanicity.
Similarly,
while
light
skin
is
generally
valorized,
white skin
in and
of
itself is
insufficient,
and
skin
that
is too
white
is considered
unsightly.
As
Chucha
put
it: "There are
blacks
who have
pretty
faces. And there are whites
who have
ugly
faces."
Nonetheless,
the
fact that each of these
possibilities
is constructed as
exceptional points
to the standard
equation
of
whiteness
and
blackness with
beauty
and
ugliness, respectively.
Consider the follow-
ing exchange
between
Doris,
a
white
skinned,
straight-haired
Dominican
woman married to a brown
skinned,
curly-haired
Dominican
man,
and
me,
a
similarly
white-skinned,
straight-haired
Dominican woman.
Recall
that
Doris is the
woman who
learned to set her
daughters*
hair
by observing
stylists
at her
salon.
Me:
Tell me
something.
You've
just
told me that we
value hair
a lot and
color
less,
in the sense that if hair is
"good"
you
are
placed
in the
white
category.
What
happens
in the case of someone who
is
very
light
but has "bad hair"?
Doris:
No,
that one is on the
black
side
because it's
just
that the
jabao
in Santo
Domingo
is white with
bad
hair,
really
tight
hair.
Well,
that one is
on the black side
because I
myself say,
"If
my
daughters
had turned out
jabd,
it's better that
they
would
have turned
out
brown,
with their hair
like
that,
tryueno."
Because I didn't want
my
daughters
to come out white with
tight
hair.
No. For
me,
better
triguena.
They're
prettier.
I've
always
said that. All three
of
my
children are
triguenos.
Me:
Why?
What
makes
them
prettier?
I48 GINETTA
CANDELARIO
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Doris:
Well,
their
color.
Because
for
me,
someone
white,
an
ugly,
ordinary
white
person,
looks worse
than a
brown
one,
a
black one
who
doesn't,
who
really
is
black.
If
they're
white like
that,
the
way
there
are
some
white,
those
white
people,
white, white,
fine,
they
look
exaggeratedly
white
like
that.
They
don't
look
good.
To
me,
they're
not
attractive.
I
prefer
someone of
color.
Of
color,
but
not
black.
The aesthetic model is
the
body
that is a "middle
term"
as my respondents
named
it,
neither too
white nor too
black.
In
other
words,
the
mestiza/mulatta,
the embodiment of
theTaina/o
icon dis-
played
at the Dominican
museum,
in the
Dominican
beauty
pageant,
in
the Dominican
media,
and in Dominican
history
books.
The
question
remains,
however: How
do contemporary
Dominican
women and
girls
look
at
pictures
of
African American
women
who
look like
them and
yet
distance themselves from this
similarity?
What is
taking place
when
women
at
the
salon
identify
with the
women
in the
white
hairstyles
book,
and
distance
themselves
adamantly
from those in the African
Ameri-
can
hairstyles
book? Are
they
doing
psychic
violence
to
themselves?
I
argue
that
they
are
not,
to
the extent that Dominicans
identify
as
"Hispanic"
and
consider
those
who evidence
a
degree
of mixture to
"look
Hispanic.
"
Thus,
if one were
to be
guided simply by
the fact that Dominican
women
at Salon
Lamadas
preferred
to
look
at the white
hairstyles
book,
it
could
easily
be
concluded
that Dominican
women
prefer
"white" looks.
See
table
i,
which
records
the
preference
for
images
selected from
the
"white"
book,
and the
concomitant
rejection
of
images
from the
"black" book.
table i:
Binding
of "Most Attractive" and "Least Attractive"
Images
Descriptors Number Percent
"Most Attractive" 60 100
Selected from "white"
hairstyle
book 39 65
Selected from
"black"
hairstyle
book 21 35
"Least Attractive" 59 100
Selected from "white"
hairstyle
book 17 29
Selected from "black"
hairstyle
book 42 71
However,
the
symbolic
and literal
binding
of the
images
into one of
two
choices-
black
or white-
reflects
the
U.S. dichotomization of race.
There are no "Latina"
or
"Hispanic"
hairstyle
books. Once the
images
are
considered
outside of
the context of their
bindings,
however,
as
they
were
by
Salon
Lamadas' clients
during
the
photo
elicitation
interviews,
it
be-
HAIR RACE-ING 149
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table 2: Perceived
Ethnicity/Race
and
Perceived
Prettiness
Described as "Hispanic" ... ...
1
Described
... as Described
... as
White Black Non-Hispanic Non-Hispanic
Attributes Book Book "White" "Black"
Prettiest 92% 100% 8% -
Least
Pretty 71% 83% 29% 17%
comes
clear once
again
that the
preference
is not for U.S.
whiteness,
but
for
"Hispanic"
or mixed
looks.
In
other
words,
it
is neither
the
white book
nor the
black book
per
se
that Salon Lamadas' clients
prefer
or
reject.
It
is the
images
contained in each
book
that
they
consider
to
approximate
or not
approximate
a "Hispanic"
ideal,
an ideal
dually
defined as contain-
ing
elements from
both
blackness
and
whiteness where Dominicans
are
concerned,
and,
more
generally,
as
indicating
mestizqje
(see
table
2).
Thus,
nearly
all of the
women selected
as
attractive from the
"white"
book,
and
100
percent
of the
women selected
as
attractive from the
"black"
book
were
also
thought
to
look
Hispanic.
And
while
neither of the
two women from
the
"black"
book who were considered to be
unequivocally
black
were
con-
sidered
among
the
prettiest, only
one
of the
two white women considered
unequivocally
non-Hispanic
was
among
the
prettiest.
None
of
the
top
three
choices as the
prettiest
of the
women was
perceived
to be a
white
Anglo
(see
fig.
1).
The
top
choice
was considered
unequivocally
Latina,
while the
second and
third choices
were
"probably"
Latina and
"possibly
Latina,
possibly
black"
respectively.
Again,
although
Anglo
white women
were
not considered
prettiest,
they
were also less
likely
to be
categorized
as "least
pretty."
The
top
three
choices
for "least
pretty"
all
were
perceived
as
closer to
blackness
and fur-
ther from
Latina-ness
(fig.
2).
What's
more,
those
perceived
to
be
whiter
Latinas
were more
heavily represented
among
the
top nine
prettiest
women. Most
interesting,
however,
was
the assessment of the
appearance
of
the
woman selected
both
as
most
Latina-looking
and
prettiest.
The
top
choice in
both the
"Looks
Hispanic"
and "Prettiest"
categories
is
almost
stereotypically
Latina. Clara
Rodriguez
has
noted the media
rep-
resentation
of "Latin
looks"
in the
United States
consists
of
skin
that is
"slightly
tan,
with
dark hair and
eyes"
(1997,
1)
a
reasonable
description
of
the
top
choice in
this
study.
That
said,
it
is
important
to
note that half of
the
twenty
women
my
respondents
perceived
to
look
Hispanic
were
drawn
from
the
African American
hairstyles
book
and had features
that the re-
150 GINETTA
CANDELARIO
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Figure
4.
"Looks Dominican"
spondents
considered to connote a
degree
of ancestral
blackness.
Further,
it
was
also
those women that
my respondents
selected as looking
"typi-
cally"
Dominican
(fig. 4). "Looking
Dominican" as noted
above,
evidently
means
having
visible African features.
Thus,
one discerns who is
simply
"black"
and who is "Dominican"
not
only by
signs
of mixture-
lighter
skin,
looser
hair,
thinner features- but
by
reference
to
hair
culture,
be-
cause,
as Lamadas
client Paulina
explained,
"Black
women
are
confusing,
but the hair lets
you
know."
CONCLUSION
Cause with a natural
there is no
natural
place
for
us to
congregate
to mull over
our mutual
discontent
Beauty shops
could have
been
a
hcll-qf-a-place
toferment
a
revolution.
- "Amon^
the
Things
That Use
to
Be"
In
stretching
the bounds of
whiteness
in
the
United States
to accom-
modate
their own definition and
understanding
of
it,
Dominican women's
hair culture
stands in
sharp
contrast
to African American
hair culture.
HAIR RACE-ING 151
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When
Chucha notes
that the
job
of the
Dominican hair
stylist
is to
"adopt
white
products
to
our
hair,"
she is
pointing
to
precisely
that
alternative
understanding
of
whiteness.
African
Americans,
by
contrast,
have devel-
oped
their
own
unique
system
of
hair care and
hair
care
products-
at
times in
opposition
to,
at times
parallel
to,
and at
times
simply
oblivi-
ous of the
Anglo
somatic norm
image.
For
Hoetink
(1967)
it is "illogi-
cal" that
African
Americans
"despite
[their]
adoption
of
the whole
[white]
preference pattern,
nevertheless
place
[themselves]
at
the
top
of the
[aes-
thetic]
preferences
list" as a
study
of African
American's aesthetic
prefer-
ences in St. Louis
found
(160).
What
Hoetink
overlooks,
and what
therefore
makes African
American's
self-valuation
logical
in
the
context of
white
supremacy,
is
that
segregation
forced
African
Americans to create
their
own
social, economic,
and aesthetic
spaces.
Straightening
their
hair,
for
example,
is not
necessarily
a "white wish"
on the
part
of
African Ameri-
cans.
Rather,
as
Mercer
(1994) points
out,
it is often a
means to an
explicitly
"black"
hairstyle.
Certain
sculpted hairstyles
require
chemically processed
hair for their
construction. The
explicit artificiality
of
hair
sculpting
stands
in
sharp
contrast to
naturalness in
the
European
model,
indicated not
only
by
"hair that
moves,"
but
by
"natural"
styles
such as
Afros
and
dreadlocks.
In
a
recent video
documentary
featuring
the
African American
million-
aire and
beauty products
entrepreneur
Madame
C.J.
Walker,
several former
Walker
agents
and
customers
emphasized
that
black women cared for
their
hair
with Walker
products
and
methods,
not in order to
look
white,
but "to
be beautiful"
(Nelson
1987).
They
repeatedly
stressed
African
American
women's
desire
to
be
pretty
in their own
right, noting
that
Walker didn't
sell
"straighteners"
or
"relaxers,
"
and that she
emphatically
disallowed
the
use of those
words in her
advertisements
and sales
pitches
(Rooks
1996).
The
question
for
Dominican
women
is
whether it
is
possible
similarly
to
engage
in
beauty practice
outside of the
patriarchal
imperatives
of
blanque-
amiento.
Given that
contemporary
Dominican
beauty
practices
require
alter-
ation,
consumption,
and
production
of
ephemeral
capitalist goods
and
services;
expenditure
of limited financial and
temporal
resources;
and
denigration
of
blackness,
can
beauty
be
empowering?
Individual
women
do
empower
themselves
through beauty.
In the context
of
white
suprema-
cist
and
heteronormative
patriarchy, beauty
is a form of
cultural
capital
that
can
be
exchanged
for
symbolic
and economic
capital
(Bourdieau
1984).
But
can Dominican
women
as a political group,
as a social
category,
be
152 GINETTA CANDELARIO
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empowered
by beauty
regimes?
In a word,
the
answer
is no. For
beauty
regimes
require
ugliness
to
reside
somewhere,
and that
somewhere
is
in
other
women,
usually
women defined as
black.
Who is
black
in the
Domi-
nican context
of
New
York
City
is mediated
by
the historic
relationship
be-
tween
Haiti and the
Dominican
Republic,
the current
relationship
between
Dominicans and African
Americans,
and the
continually
mutual consti-
tuitiveness of
beauty
and race semiotic
systems.
Racial
identity
is enacted
through
racialized
reproduction practices
and
beauty practices. Beauty
is
a
scale,
a
continuum
of some
kind,
whether hierarchical or linear. The ab-
sence of
beauty,
culminating
in
ugliness,
carries the threat of
derision,
expulsion,
and even violence.
And
yet,
while
beauty
regimes
are not
empowering,
the
community
that
is
developed
around
beauty
practices
often is. Small revolutions ferment in
the
beauty shop
daily
when
Dominican
women
confront
oppressive
con-
ditions
generated
by
government
offices,
hospitals,
schools,
employers,
husbands,
and
lovers,
with
the
support
and assistance of their
beauty shop
community
and kin.
This is the
paradox
of Dominican women's
beauty
culture.
NOTES
The
research for
this
article
was funded
by
a
Rockefeller
Fellowship
at
the Domi-
nican Studies Institute
of the
City College
of New
York
and
by
a Latino Studies
Predoctoral
Fellowship
at the Smithsonian
Institute.
1. Dominican
population
data are
taken
from
Duany
1994.
Information on number
of salons
is
taken
from
the
1992
Economic
Census,
and
geographic
dispersal
of
salons
is derived from the
yahoo.maps
website.
2.
Proper
names
of businesses
and of individuals interviewed have
been
changed
in
the interests
of
confidentiality.
3.
All interview
excerpts
have been
translated from
Spanish
by
the author.
4. The term
hispano
(Hisanic)
almost
universally
was
used
interchangeably
with
La-
tino. It was
the more
prevalent
term, however,
and
will
be used here when
para-
phrasing
or
quoting
others.
Latinajo
will
be used as the author's
descriptive.
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